[Ardour-Users] Ardour 2.8.5 released

[Paul Davis]

On Sun, Jan 24, 2010 at 10:57 PM, John Emmas <johne53 at tiscali.co.uk> wrote:

> 1)  A one-off charge for providing subversion access to non-developers.

right, this is the one item that is NEVER going to happen.

> 2)  Releasing some kind of (chargeable) "Ardour Pro" version.

done. its called "mixbus".

> 3)  Charging for enhanced support.

done, you just don't know about it.

> 4)  Charging for "added value" items, such as manuals, printed logo
> stickers, special keyboard overlays etc.

since i have not been responsible for creating any such material, i'm
not going try to claim it as a revenue stream. if i find time to do
something that is actually useful in this regard, then i would
certainly take this up, and in fact, i should reinstate the t-shirt
link to zazzle.com ...

> 5)  Using some of the existing income to pay a professional fundraiser.

still a possibility, although i think that "marketing professional"
might be a more appropriate term at this point.

honestly, i don't know what to say. i've spent 10 years on this
project. there have been 2 crisis points with funding, but otherwise,
its been a long slow steady path, almost always in the direction of
progress. at this point, i, with the help of many others in many
different ways, have managed to end up as a software developer who is
entirely self-funded by users who don't actually need to pay for
anything if they really didn't want to. i think that's a minor
miracle, and right now, i'm still celebrating that accomplishment with
a sense of dizziness, gratitude and awe.

there are many other currents and undertows going on behind the scenes
with ardour that make me moderately optimistic that having more than
doubled the revenue over the past year, the situation will continue to
improve. slowly, yes. steadily, hopefully. and with compromising my
own ideals, perhaps.

i just told an industry contact today that at this point, growing the
number of developers who can be paid to work on ardour is probably
more important than growing my own personal income at this point. i
didn't say that to sound cute, i said it because its what i believe.
there are some brilliantly skilled programmers who could (a) use the
income (b) would do great things. i very much look forward to the day
when they could be compensated for their effort in the same way that
i, for now, enjoy.

and john, just for reference sake, US$54k/yr is the salary that a US
systems programmer or software engineer could expect to earn within a
year or two of leaving college, almost anywhere in the country. they'd
probably get health insurance (worth perhaps $5-12k/yr) and access to
a 401k retirement/investment plan with employer contributions as well.
as i've said many times before, i'm aware that if i lived in, say,
costa rica, it would be a princely sum. in another few years, perhaps
that will be an option, but i've got my own kids to get through the
educational process first.

--p